April 29, 2014

WHY MEN DON’T TEACH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: In pointing out various examples of sexual misconduct by female teachers, I regularly note that men are less likely to enter teaching because male teachers are suspected of being likely predators. Note this story, which would be treated as a damning example of racism if it were about a black teacher, but is treated as just the way things are since it’s sexism aimed at a male one:

Stereotypes about male teachers, and sometimes mistrust, persist.

“It’s very hard to change the suspicion of men who are going to elementary education when there are so few of them,” Thompson said. “Schools ask me to talk to men on their faculty and when I sit with them behind closed doors, they say the moms look at them like potential pedophiles.

“If they are too nurturing or a mother comes in and sees a teacher reading in a chair and the child is leaning against the teacher or cuddling him, they freak out,” he said. “Men tell me they only have to look in the mom’s face to know what they are thinking.” . . . “I would have literally four or five parents sitting at a table at a certain point in the year observing me,” Wiederspan said. “And it was nerve-wracking as an untenured teacher.”

What’s funny, as I’ve noted before, is that if you watch old movies, or even cartoons, it’s regularly assumed that adult males have nurturing instincts. Only in our supposedly progressive era are men reduced to cardboard cutouts dominated by lust and Mammon.

It's heartbreaking that men are now being driven from secondary education too, after already having been exiled from elementary schools. With fathers absent from so many American children's lives, with the two-parent family virtually extinct in most urban areas and blue states, millions of kids are reaching adulthood without ever having had close contact with a mature male, much less had an adult male as a positive role model. Think what it means that so many young girls are surrounded by males all of whom are contemporaries or younger.

There's a catch-22 here. Elementary school teaching is so heavily female, that a man who enter the field look odd. Guys with an interest in children might want to look at becoming a child life specialist. It's a profession that works with hospitalized children, helping them cope with their treatment. Being in a hospital, means an environment that's has both men and women, so neither seems odd. Here's how Mayo Clinic describes it:

When I worked in a major children's hospital, some of my work involved child life specialist-like tasks. It can be very fulfilling to help a terrified child become comfortable with hospitalization, going from screaming a fearful to happy and trusting.

--Michael W. Perry, My Nights with Leukemia: Caring for Children with Cancer

The hatred and fear that all men lack compassion, lack empathy, and are pedophiles waiting for an opportunity is rooted in the rejection of Christianity, whose founder was noted for his compassion and empathy.

It's heartbreaking that men are now being driven from secondary education too, after already having been exiled from elementary schools. With fathers absent from so many American children's lives, with the two-parent family virtually extinct in most urban areas and blue states, millions of kids are reaching adulthood without ever having had close contact with a mature male, much less had an adult male as a positive role model. Think what it means that so many young girls are surrounded by males all of whom are contemporaries or younger.

We mistrust public school teachers for good reason - the Ed. Blob. Education is the easiest of college majors. An easy major attracts the lazy, especially when it leads to a highly paid career with summers off, long breaks, and lots of unquestioned sick leave.

Public school teachers molest their charges at at least 30 times the rate at which Catholic priests ever did. And teachers' unions defend those caught red-handed molesting charges - defend them tooth and nail.

Of course there are good, dedicated teachers. Ask any one of them how many Party People (woo-hoo!) infest the faculty lounge.

Profiling is good, sorry, Glenn. Paedophilia should be separated from ephebophilia. Paedophiles go for the prepubescent, and they're almost all men.

At least keep men in 4th grade and above - the smaller kids want to cuddle with Teacher. (Most men don't choose the smallers - certified K-6, they take the empty slot. Can't force a woman with more union seniority to take the slot with the youngers - Ed. Blob again.)

You're right, idiots would scream if this profiling were against a protected group. That's why we get the TSA's security theater. Profiling isn't racist or sexist, it's crime prevention.

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